


The Next Mourning

by astrxd



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Cross-Posted on Tumblr, F/M, References to Race to the Edge, Tumblr request, post-httyd 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrxd/pseuds/astrxd
Summary: The first night after Drago's defeat, Hiccup finds himself in the Great Hall, contemplating what the day's events mean for his future. Astrid, and then the rest of the gang, join him in reminiscing their adventures."…The problem was, sleep meant that the young, newly-inducted chief would have to sacrifice the last few hours of true adolescence (freedom) that he had left. Come morning, it would all be gone, traded for beginning reconstruction plans and restabilizing the island’s normal operation. Technically, his days of reckless flying and shirking responsibilities to map the world was already over, but the moments he spent in the empty Great Hall with Astrid Hofferson projected him back into the past — back to an arguably simpler time of his life.He wasn’t ungrateful for his birthright position. At least, he was trying not to be. Things were just happening at an unwieldy pace that he couldn’t keep up with, faster than the dark blur of a Night Fury darting through the aether, and he couldn’t help but… Think.Maybe a bit too much."





	The Next Mourning

**Author's Note:**

> Full Request: "Could you write a one shot the first night after the battle with Drago? Hiccup is cleaning Astrid’s wounds when the rest of the gang comes in and Hiccup realizes that he won’t get to spend as much time with them anymore or go on any fun adventures. It’s kinda sad but they all assure him that they’re gonna be around all the time to help him and even Snotlout gets a little bit teary-eyed!"

****It was late. Or was it early? Either way, Hiccup felt more tired than he’s ever been in his life.

The festivities that swept through the Great Hall after the long —  _long —_ day full of starting to free Berk of the splinters and pillars of ice that riddled the island lasted well into the ungodly hours of the morning, and all Hiccup wanted to do was sleep. There’d been meade and music and plenty of food, as any Viking celebration required, and rather than spend the evening at a table, pouring over lists and blueprints and drowning in his thoughts…   
  
Astrid Hofferson had other plans for him — plans that involved dancing and sweet kisses that tasted of dried fruit and honey and laughter shared with (or directed at) other Vikings behaving true to their tribe’s name. Hiccup had been grateful, of course, for the few hours of escapism that allowed him to stave off the onslaught of emotions that was sure to hit him in due time, but he was exhausted — and sleep sounded more and more appealing by the moment.

…The problem was, sleep meant that the young, newly-inducted chief would have to sacrifice the last few hours of true adolescence  _(freedom)_ that he had left. Come morning, it would all be gone, traded for beginning reconstruction plans and restabilizing the island’s normal operation. Technically, his days of reckless flying and shirking responsibilities to map the world was already over, but the moments he spent in the empty Great Hall with Astrid Hofferson projected him back into the past — back to an arguably simpler time of his life.

He wasn’t ungrateful for his birthright position. At least, he was trying not to be. Things were just happening at an unwieldy pace that he couldn’t keep up with, faster than the dark blur of a Night Fury darting through the aether, and he couldn’t help but… Think.

Maybe a bit too much.

The massive, albeit currently wavering and fading, fire in the heart of the hall was the inspiration of the one at the center of their clubhouse, way back when the Edge was their home away from home. From the two seats they pulled up beside it, Hiccup observed the way that the flames cast a warm orange glow across his lover’s face as she pulled her hair from its braids. Astrid had complained of quite the headache, and the pulling of her hair in a tight plait probably hadn’t been doing her any good. She uses the leather band that secured the braid over her shoulder to pull her hair back into a loose ponytail — one that makes a small, warm smile tickle the corners of his lips when he looks at her and fire, similar to the one beside him, erupts in his chest. Astrid quirks a brow.

“…You okay?”

Hiccup shakes his head and flushes the slightest bit. He hadn’t realized that he was staring, but the hint of a grin on her face told him that she found that amusing. “Er, thinking, is all.”

“Like that’s anything new,” Astrid drawls, leaning forward to touch his hand. “Thinking is dangerous, especially for you. What about?”

“Your hair looks nice like that,” he says reflexively. Hiccup mirrors Astrid’s half-grin when she looks slightly surprised with his response.

“That’s definitely you trying to dodge the question, but okay. Thank you,” she snorts. “I kind of like it, too.” Astrid pulls her hand back to tuck some hair behind her ear. It could be the fire’s glow, but if he wasn’t mistaken, the warmth coloring her cheeks wasn’t a result of any external sources of heat. She was blushing and—

Wait.

Oh.

As she bites her lip, likely to suppress the smitten smile that had taken over her expression, he notices it: a thin line of red along the apple of her cheek, just where her hair had previously framed her face. The skin was slightly puckered and pink, and though the wound wasn’t fresh, it was still open.

“Astrid,” he starts, and his tone is chiding… Meaning it warranted a roll of blue eyes and a small, exasperated scoff that he knew all too well. Hiccup scooted his seat forward to reach out and carefully catch her chin in his fingers to angle her face away so that he could see it better. “What ha—“

“It was just a Nadder,” she interjects with a sigh. Astrid reaches up to brush his hand away but seems to think against it after a moment of hesitation, leading to her hands to fall back into her lap. “It wouldn’t let anyone close enough to get its armor off, so I stepped in. Turns out that it was apprehensive of humans for a good reason. The metal was fastened so tight that it practically molded ridges into its scales.” Astrid shrugged. “It got defensive, but I knew what I was doing.”

She’s proud. Rightfully so. Hiccup knows that she still trains extensively with Stormfly, so his smile is bittersweet. On the one hand, it made sense that their resident Nadder expert was the one to aid a particularly distressed dragon of that breed, and he was proud of her for managing to help it, but he knew how badly a Nadder spine hurt, even if it was only a graze. Scratch or a gaping lesion, Nadder spines were poisonous.  “I tried the spot—“ she gives Hiccup a meaningful look, “—you know, the  _spot_ , but it panicked and brandished its spines, swung its tail around, the works. But I’m fine. I’ve endured much, much worse, Hiccup.

“I know, I just—you—” He struggles to find the right words, so after a moment’s pause of calibrating his brain, Hiccup huffs. “Did you at least treat it already?” He moves his hand to cradle Astrid’s cheek, and his gaze settles firmly on hers. Hiccup can tell what she’s trying to say: he was making too big of a deal about the little things, and he needed to relax, stop worrying that something would happen to her. Could he be blamed, though? After the day he had? He’d lost his father, almost lost his best friend, and if he lost Astrid, just because of a Nadder’s tail…

Gods, he couldn’t even bring himself to think about it.

“Babe, it’s a tiny cut. I’ve had so many accidental spine wounds from training with Stormfly that I’m probably immune to these small doses of Nadder poison.” Astrid covers the back of his hand with her own and leans into his palm. “I’m okay. I promise. And hey, maybe I’ll get a scar out of it.”

She’s joking, but it still takes him a moment to gather his thoughts. He purses his lips and his gaze flickers, flitting between her eyes to the pink line spanning the apple of her cheek. The light of the fire continues to dance across her face; it contrasts the blue of her eyes so that they appeared an icy silver. She was okay. She was here. He didn’t have to worry nearly as much as he was. Hiccup soon relents with a sigh and — tenderly, carefully, sweetly — leans forward to kiss her forehead. “…Thank you,” he finally exhales, “for today. For everything.”

Her smile is sad, and he knows that she can see right through him, but there’s something distinctly comforting about the wry tint to her expression. The reassurance crystalizes itself in her words. “You know, that’s my line —  _and_ you said it wrong.” Astrid rises from her seat, steps forward, and nudges Hiccup’s legs apart with her knees so that she could stand in front of him.

Hiccup laughs. “Oh, really? Okay, maybe you should remind me of how it does.” (He’s feigning ignorance, yes, but for the sake of a kiss. Always for a kiss.)

“It should be like this,” she says, clearing her throat. Astrid sweeps his hair away from his forehead and kisses him squarely between his brows — the same place Gothi had drawn her symbols on him. It feels vaguely symbolic. “That’s for today. And then…” Astrid cups his cheeks with either of her hands and presses their lips together in a kiss that makes him melt. When she pulls away, Hiccup is starry-eyed and smiling, and Astrid looks the very same way. “And that’s for  _everything else_.”

Hiccup’s smile broadens into a grin as his hands settle at her waist. “Well, hey, wait a minute. Isn’t—isn’t the, uh, the first one supposed to be a punch?” The blonde gives him a perplexed look.

“Do you  _want_ me to punch you?”

“Hard pass.” He doesn’t miss a beat in responding.

“Thought so,” Astrid laughs. She smooths her thumbs over his cheeks and blinks slowly, breathes slowly… It’s a long moment, one of comfortable silence and thoughts running rampant throughout both of their heads, before either of them speak up again. It’s Astrid. “Now really,” she starts quietly, worry much more evident in her eyes. “What were you thinking about?”

Hiccup is silent, just for a moment, as he debates telling her. He was thinking about how, as soon as the sun rose, people would be turning to him for direction and guidance and leadership. He was thinking about how he was never going to be his father, and he was terrified that he would fail their people and disappoint his dad. He was thinking about how being chief meant that he’d have less if any, time to fly Toothless or explore what lies beyond the rest of the Archipelago or—or, or be with  _her._

(…The last one was the most selfish, he thinks, because Stoick the Vast always said that the needs of the many outweigh those of the few. But Hiccup couldn’t help himself.)

Somehow, though? He finds that he doesn’t need to say anything. Astrid simply shakes her head, as if to dismiss her question; she’s already got a hand carding through his hair and the other rubbing circles between his shoulder blades. He slumps against her, arms circling around her waist, and he resolves to share only two words in a hushed whisper—

“I’m afraid.”

“…I know,” she whispers, “I know, babe. It’s okay. It’s okay.” Hiccup takes a shuddery breath… Because now that it was out there, he found it difficult to hold anything else back.

“I’m afraid, that—that I’m not… I’m not ready. Or, or I’m afraid that I’m not enough, or that I’ll mess up, or that something will go wrong or Drago will  _come back_ and, and—“ It had been a drastic shift in moods. In the wake of their victory, during all of the celebrating and beginnings of clean up, Hiccup had felt something akin to  _readiness_ for the future, faith in himself, in his people — and now? 

Now, his initial apprehensions were hitting him all over again with full force and then some. When he inevitably went home for the night, his father wouldn’t be there, but his mother — his  _mother,_ who’s been gone for almost two decades — would be. All of his father’s belongings would overwhelm him with emotion and sadness and regret and thoughts and what-ifs of how things could have been different, how he could have prevented Stoick the Vast from—

…Hiccup’s breath hitches and he clings tighter to Astrid. She immediately begins murmuring words of assurance into his ear, rubbing his back, touching his hair… It’s a valiant attempt at comforting, yes, and if anyone could do it then it was certainly going to be Astrid, but the tears were already stinging, and his chest was already far too tight.

“You’re allowed to be scared,” Astrid coos gently, continuing to thread her hands through his hair for another moment, before pulling out of their embrace to stoop down and look up at him with her hands on his shoulders. “But the last thing you are is  _alone,_ Hiccup. Toothless is here, I’m here, Gobber’s here, your mother is here…” She moves one of her palms down to the flat of his chest, just above his heart. “And your father is here. We’ll get through tonight, tomorrow, and every day afterward — together.”

Hiccup had been reluctant to look at her, in fear that it would be all too much and the stinging in his eyes would eventually turn into full-fledged tears, but he relents — and he’s glad that he does. There's so much empathy and compassion gleaming in her eyes, from the gentle curve of her lips to the slight knit of her brow and—

“Rude, much? Way to exclude us,” a voice grumbles from across the hall — an unmistakably  _arrogant_ voice that’s always had these… Snobbishly infuriating qualities about it. In this context, though, Hiccup can’t find it in himself to be frustrated with Snotlout, not when there’s some strain of camaraderie hidden beneath his interrupting snark. He and Astrid share a look before glancing up to find Snotlout, Fishlegs, and the twins padding through the Great Hall’s entrance, their dragons in tow (though they all take a detour towards where Toothless and Stormfly were messing around).

“Good evening to you too, Snotlout. At least, it  _was_  before you got here.” There’s little to no bite in her tone, and Hiccup knows it — though Snotlout does give Astrid a sneer in response to her wry grin. It’s an expression that they’ve all come to know very well, seeing as it was always paired with a—

“Shut up, Astrid,” Snotlout grumbles under his breath, nose wrinkled and eyebrows narrowed and all. She rolls her eyes, albeit with a small smile, as she gets up from her crouch, leaving Hiccup the chance to comfortably slip one of his arms around her middle. (Ever since the two of them transitioned into a state of more casual intimacy, Astrid and Snotlout formed quite an… Interesting relationship. When Hiccup’s intentions were made clear, Snotlout backed off with the flirting, leaving the Jorgenson and Hofferson to become friends. With many remarks of “shut up, Astrid” and punches in reciprocation. Really, Hiccup has tried counting how many times Snotlout would say it in a day.)

“It’s always surprising when I find myself agreeing with  _Snotlout,_ but he does have a point,” Fishlegs says, once they’ve all circled up around the firepit. “Don’t count us out, Hiccup. We’ve followed you then, and we’re following you now.”

“Like, literally,” Tuffnut adds, “we followed you here. Been standing outside for a little while, actua—“

“Ignore him,” Ruff interjects, clapping a hand over her brother’s mouth. Astrid lifts a brow, but Hiccup can’t stifle the laugh that bubbles up in his chest. There’s warmth and familiarity about the situation, and seeing all of them together like this… He glances around at the faces of the people he’s grown up with, and though it fills him with an ache of sadness to think that they’ve truly  _grown up,_ Hiccup has begun to understand that it’s not necessarily something meant to be mourned. They were older, stronger, braver, and in some cases, wiser—

In a matter of seconds, Hiccup’s short laugh had erupted into something much more hearty. Astrid wasn’t the only one giving him a funny look, because  _surely_ , their friends staking outside of the Great Hall and trying to listen in on their conversation wasn’t  _that_  funny, but he wasn’t laughing about that. It was just…

“You know, in the midst of trying to prevent yet another war from breaking out between Vikings and dragons, I almost missed it,” he muses, looking between everybody. Only half a decade ago, they were  _kids_ getting ready to inherit the lifelong battle of their parents, and now Hiccup was chief, and Astrid was climbing the ranks in Berk’s Guard (and his betrothed), and Fishlegs and Snotlout and Ruff and Tuff were — well, they were  _all_ different. So much has changed.

“I don’t know what  _you_ missed back then, but I’m definitely missing something  _here_ ,” Snotlout jabs, arms folded and expression quizzical. Hiccup takes it in stride; his grin doesn’t falter for a moment as he chuckles and shakes his head.

“The skeleton on Vanaheim,” he starts, leaning into Astrid as she wraps her own arm around his shoulders. Fishlegs already has an eager grin on his face, and Hiccup doesn’t doubt that he knows where he’s going with this. “The mind control, the ice — the egg from the  _King of Dragons_? We didn’t see it then, but those frills and spikes covering it—“

“…Were  _just_  like the ones on those two massive dragons,” Fishlegs whispers, awestruck. Hiccup feels Astrid’s posture loosen beside him, and a glance up at her reveals that she was sporting a tender smile and a gentle gaze, directed right at him.

“It’s always been the Bewilderbeast,” Hiccup nods. “Which makes me wonder what—“

“—happened to the egg?” Astrid submits, squeezing Hiccup’s shoulder. She shakes her head. “Yeah, me too. I highly doubt that it could have matured throughout what, two years? That’s impossible.”

“It’s doubtful, yes,” Fishlegs sighs, although a bright gleam dawns across his face and indicates that he’s come up with an idea. “ _But_ , we could always reach back out to Atali and the Wingmaidens to find out where—“

“Yes,” Snotlout adds, a finger raised and matter-of-factly pointed at Fishlegs, “that is a  _good_ plan.”

Tuffnut makes a face, and Hiccup can’t tell if it’s because Snotlout likes the idea of contacting the Wing Maidens while he’s supposedly attempting to court Ruffnut or… Because he’s Tuffnut. “Eugh. Thinking about all the stuff that happened  _two years_ ago makes me feel all weird. Tingly. A most peculiar feeling, truly.”

“It’s called nostalgics, yak for brains,” Snotlout scoffs. “Even I knew that.” There’s light bickering that erupts between the two, moderated by Ruffnut — though “moderated” only means that she’s egging the two on. It’s all so painfully reminiscent of their days at Outpost Island and, for yet another moment, Hiccup feels like he’s been transported back into the past, back to days of new dragon species aplenty and an abundance of death at every sea stack they turned. The mystery, the thrill, the  _adventure_ —

In a way, it wasn’t over — not technically. They would just be starting another, different kind of journey… But looking around, watching as Tuffnut and Snotlout butted heads and the others looked on and laughed, Hiccup knew with distinct certainty that it wouldn’t be a journey they embarked on alone.

Together, they’d lead Berk further into its current generation of peace. Together, they would spread that peace.

Together, they would change the world.

Hiccup smiles and heaves a sigh — a contented sigh, one that makes Astrid nudge her hip into his side. She gives him a knowing look. “So what are you thinking  _this_  time?”

“Oh, you know. That it’s kind of crazy that so much has come full circle, how much I’m going to miss all…” He gestures to the others. “This.”

“You say that as if we’re going anywhere,” Astrid snorts.

“No, no, not like that. I meant, just —  _this_. This, as in, in—“

She laughs and issues his shoulder another squeeze. “It’s okay, Hiccup. I get it.”

“ _We_  get it,” Snotlout corrects, likely just to spite Astrid, but the sentiment behind the words catches up with him in a few seconds — as displayed by the way he sheepishly drops his gaze, just for a moment.

“…We’re old,” he exhales, “I’m—I’m the  _chief_ , and, and gods, it feels even stranger to say it out loud? It, I just, it feels like only yesterday, Toothless woke me up in my house and you guys were flying around Berk on dragons.”

“Oh! I love this game! Like just yesterday, Bucket painted a shield with freakishly muscular Hiccup on it!” Tuffnut exclaims, jerking his head toward the line of portraits. Hiccup smiles gently as he glances toward the since-amended painting of him and his father… Though his gaze lingers, just for a moment, on the likeness of Stoick the Vast immortalized in paint. Astrid seems to catch on, based on the way she circles her palm on his back in a small, reassuring motion again. (He’s grateful to have her — very grateful.)

“Buff Hiccup! Buffcup!” Ruffnut cackles, clapping her brother’s back out of mirth. “It’s like just yesterday, we convinced Snotlout that he was  _dying_  and he almost gave Hookfang to Gustav.”

“Hey! I resent that,” Snotlout snaps. “It was one of your dumb Loki pranks. At least I didn’t think I was  _Thor Bonecrusher_.”

Astrid rolls her eyes. “Really? That’s the comeback you’re going with? Please — you were in love with Thor Bonecrusher,  _Sir Ulgerthorpe Notlout_.”

“You—ugh. Why are you all targeting me?” He huffs. “Tuffnut’s the one who got bit by a  _wolf_ and thought that he’d turn into a half-dragon!” Snotlout crosses his arms and sticks his nose up.

“Ehh. But you also thought that the Wingmaidens were going to eat you. And you were the easiest Loki Day target.”

“Yeah? Yeah? Well, Astrid flippin’ poisoned herself by  _punching_ a dragon—“

“—To save Stormfly, dimwit. Don’t be dramatic.”

“Dramatic?  _Dramatic?_ Me? No, Tuffnut is dramatic.”

“Snotlout, you’ve narrated your actions using your own name for years. By my calculations, that’s slightly on the dramatic side.”

Ruff pitches up her voice and pumps her fist in the air. “Snotlout, Snotlout — oy, oy, oy—“

“Hey! That is  _my_ catchphrase. Get your own.”

“Well, if anyone is dramatic, I’d say that Hiccup’s pretty up there.”

“Hey—well, actually, okay. I’ll take that one.”

They continue like that — for quite some time, too. It doesn’t take long for the others to pull up their own seats and circle around their designated arc of the fire pit, sharing laughs and stories and reminiscing the days they spent on Dragon’s Edge as teenagers on the cusp of adulthood, tasting true, unsupervised freedom and independence for the first time.

They recounted a myriad of missions, and every instance seemed to trigger memories of other happenings, from all of the dragons they freed and discovered to all of the times they narrowly dodged death; from the good times to the bad times to the best and the worst and from the laughs to the tears. In Hiccup’s head, the most prominent recollections of his days as “Princess Outpost,” as his friends once so lovingly dubbed him, were the moments where he very well could have lost any one of them… But it’s their cackles and chortles and indignant retorts that really put everything into perspective.

If not for the Edge — if not for all of the original dragon riders currently sitting around him, keeping one another company in the wake of a world-changing day — Hiccup… Hiccup probably wouldn’t be  _half_  the Viking that he ended up becoming.

All of the things they’ve been through have shaped him, changed him, made him understand people and dragons and the world in ways that he never could have  _hoped_ to learn on his own. Fishlegs has always been a friend, someone for him to turn to for knowledge and insight and chances to gush about how incredible dragons were. Ruff and Tuff showed him the value of spontaneity and unconventional thought, helped him loosen up and, though they often drove him crazy, they’d ironically also kept him from going insane — in their own odd, Thorston way. Even Snotlout, who his fifteen year-old-self wouldn’t have ever imagined getting close to, impacted him to an unimaginable extent; they were more similar than what the surface betrayed, and that allowed them to understand each other in deeper, more meaningful ways. And Astrid? There was so much to be said about his right hand, his confidante, the person who has unendingly supported him but also kept him from losing sight of his ideals.

Hiccup’s eyes flitted from between his friends, over to their dragons. To think, the deadly enigma Night Fury and the dragons they kept in awful captivity for education purposes were their best friends? It was insane, almost, but not as insane as how much Toothless meant to Hiccup. He was — he was amazing. Beyond words. So intelligent, so loyal… And Hiccup was somehow lucky enough to earn his favor.

Things could have been very,  _very_ different, but here he was, wistfully gazing at his best friend as he played with Barf and Belch and Stormfly and Meatlug and, yes, even Hookfang. It was almost hard to believe that Toothless was the new  _Alpha,_ solely based on the way that he swatted at the other dragons and jovially waved his tail as they knocked over chairs and chased each other. Hiccup, of course, knew very well that the Night Fury was beyond deserving of the title, though it was nice to see that his friends weren’t treating him any differently.

…Huh.

He looks back to  _his_ friends and smiles gently. Sure, Hiccup was chief now, but he doubted that that was going to keep Astrid from rolling her eyes at him, or Snotlout from interrupting him, or the twins from pranking him, or Fishlegs from seeking him out to talk about anything and everything dragon-related just for fun.

Hiccup was glad. Gods, was Hiccup so  _glad_ that he could count on them.

The conversation has gone down a different road — now they’re talking about how they’ve had quite the track record in getting their enemies to join their side. First, Hiccup swayed Astrid, then the rest of them, then all of Berk — Alvin, Dagur, even Viggo, and most recently, Eret. Before Ruffnut can so much as comment (and what a comment it would have been) on the mention of Berk’s newest rider, Hiccup peels off with a peculiar question. “Have you guys noticed that there’s only six of us?”

Snotlout blinks. “Uh- _duh_ , and?”

“ _Six_ ,” Hiccup presses. “Six people in our age group, and hardly anybody is any less than five years older or younger than us. Well, besides Gustav.”

“Naaah,“ Tuffnut drawls, lackadaisically waving his hand in dismissal. "Gustav’s pretty short. He could count as like, half a person.”

“Maybe two-thirds,” Ruffnut nods dutifully, supporting her brother’s interjection.

“Tuffnut, what? That’s not even math. That doesn’t even—“

“No, no, Fishface,” Snotlout nods, “two-thirds sounds about right.”

Astrid rolls her eyes. “Go on, Hiccup. We’re listening.” He chuckles and shakes his head.

“It’s nothing, really. I just… I think it’s interesting to think about? Our peer group is so—small. But now? Now, you look around Berk, and there’s a whole bunch of kids running after Terrors and—and grooming Nadders and petting Gronckles.”

“Well, that’s because people have real time to dedicate to raising real families,” Astrid smiles, touching his shoulder. He looks up at her and mirrors her expression. (Tuffnut gags in his peripherals.) “Ever since dragons stopped being a threat, so many more doors have opened.”

Fishlegs nods. “Dragons have helped us advance so much that Berk is capable of supporting an even denser population. Life is much better thanks to you and Toothless.”

Hiccup snorts. “Hey — and all of you guys.”

“Was that a thank you? I’m gonna assume that was a thank you. You are  _so_ welcome, Hiccup,” Snotlout quips, all stately and noble-like in the way he was holding up his chin and squaring his shoulders. A long time ago, Hiccup would have made a noise or expression of annoyance or something, but now… Now, all he finds himself doing is smiling.

“Yes, Lout, it’s a thank you. For making the past five years so memorable.”

Astrid grins and nudges his side, earning a laugh. “ _And?”_

“And for everything else,” Hiccup concedes with a sigh. Astrid is beaming as she leans over to kiss his cheek.

“Aw, Hiccup… I mean, it’s—it’s kind of sad, if you think about it,” Fishlegs admits, twiddling his thumbs. “I hate the idea of us just getting swept up into responsibility and hardly seeing each other. It was a lot of fun, you know? Living together on edge. On the Edge.”

“Ha, ha. Funny,” Snotlout drawls. “Not.  _I_ , for one, welcome this change. Seeing your ugly mugs every day is hard on the eyes.”

“You have  _no_ idea.”

“Shut up, Astrid.”

Tuffnut gives a wistful sigh. “I’m really gonna miss hearing H sayin’ Wall of Fire.”

There’s a moment — just a moment, but a moment all the same — that the air seems to grow heavy. It weighs down on their shoulders, all of their shoulders, and dampens the mood into something a bit more… Somber. A glance at the faces around the room reveals to Hiccup that there is, in fact, a thin veil of sadness tinting each expression. Even Snotlout draws in a slow breath and releases it in a manner that’s almost shuddery. Fishlegs steeples his fingers and taps them, the twins have their lips drawn in matching tight lines and their eyes averted. Astrid is looking over at their dragons. Hiccup knows what she’s thinking.

“Technically,” he starts, “we’re not finished just yet. Hel, maybe not ever.” Hiccup’s eyebrows raise suggestively and a wry smile tugs up at the corner of his lips.

Snotlout furrows his brow. “Hold on, hold on. Are you saying—“

Fishlegs looks up, as if he’s doing some math in his head, only to step forward seconds later. “The Edge is thirty-four hours away, so we obviously wouldn’t get there and back before daybreak. At the same time, though… The village woke up before sunrise,  _and_ they went to sleep pretty late, and most were severely — ah, impaired. I estimate that we all must be pretty tired, too, but we  _could_  still see how far we could get? Potentially?”

“So, in other words… We could chase the sun, follow the horizon for as long as we can,” Astrid suggests in conclusion, standing upright and lifting her arms over her head in a long stretch. “Just like we used to.”

Hiccup grins slowly, and he glances around; at Fishlegs, the twins, Snotlout, Astrid… These were the people that he grew up with. Five years ago, they were in the  _Kill Ring_ for dragon training — but not dragon  _training,_ training to  _kill dragons._  Five years ago, Hiccup had been the butt of the twins’ and Snotlout’s jokes, and Astrid was more concerned with the survival of the fittest than friendship (not that she could be blamed).

“Well, whaddya you guys think?” He starts, slowly bringing himself to his feet, “One more flight, for old time’s sake?” There’s an ache in the small of his back and his knees from the past few days’ worth of exertion, but it doesn’t stop him from reaching out to slip his fingers through Astrid’s. She looked at him, then glanced away for a beat to survey the other riders’ faces.

“…Okay,” she soon responds, a smile clearly playing on her lips as she reaches behind her to tighten her ponytail. “Yes. Count me in, Chief.” (Hiccup flushes at the moniker.)

“Oooh, this is going to be so exciting,” Fishlegs gushes, beaming at Hiccup. “It’s like a last hurrah. But, y’know, not  _last-_ last. Definitely not the last.”

“Uh,  _obviously_ we’re in too,” Ruffnut snorts, elbowing her brother in the side. “No way are we gonna let you guys have all the fun.”

“Hey, hey,  _woah._ Nobody leaves out Snotlout! I’m going, too.”

Hiccup opens his mouth, prepared to respond, but Astrid beats him to it; he watches her cast Snotlout a sideways smile. He feels warmth bloom in his chest as, the same way the roaring fire pit seems to crackle louder and burn brighter as they hustle towards their dragons to saddle up for one more ride.

“Wouldn’t have it any other way, Snotlout.”

He grinned back at her. “Ah, shut up, Astrid.”

(For the first time, looking around at his friends and hearing their laughter bounce off of the Great Hall’s stone walls, Hiccup really starting to suspect that things were going to be okay.)


End file.
